


I Will Die Trying

by Rinkafic



Series: Fernal 'verse [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Vampires, Were-Creatures, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For SGA Reverse Bang.  <a href="http://i.imgur.com/hOU7p.jpg"> Art by sian1359</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Die Trying

“Really?” Sheppard thought, tossing the paperback aside and picking up his coffee. Someone had left the book on the table in the rec room and out of curiosity, he had picked it up. He had skimmed the first chapter in minutes. “I want my five minutes back,” he said and glared at the offensive paperback.

“Just what we need, more drivel.” It seemed that popular culture back on Earth was on a vampire and werewolves kick; lots of books, movies and TV shows on the theme came through the Gate and on the Daedalus with the mail from home these days. Like the rest, this one was full of inaccuracies, which suited John just fine, the less the mundane people really knew about Allos, the other world, and thus about the fernal, the better. It was safer for everyone. 

He yawned and looked around the empty room. It was pretty early, too early for even the first shift to be up and about. The storm that had hit them the night before was still raging outside, so he couldn’t prowl the balconies, rooftops and spires as he liked to. John figured he’d wait a little while and then he’d collect Ronon to go running with him. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. When he found himself looking at the trashy best seller he had discarded and contemplated reading the whole thing, he finally and reluctantly had to admit to himself that he was bored. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, letting his mind wander.

Boredom is the bane of the immortal life. The novelty of living forever wears off within a few years of being turned, at least that’s what the general consensus of the haima John had spoken to had always seemed to be. He had never wanted this life. He didn’t seek it out, the way some did. It had been a complete and total accident that had led to his turning. In the decades since, he had run the gamut of emotions from denial to anger to grief and finally he had come to a dull acceptance that life was the way it was and he might as well roll with whatever came his way. Boredom got into your bones, at least it always had for John. Once it set in, he tended to do reckless things to alleviate the ennui before it led to complete lethargy. He couldn’t let that happen, someone might end up burying him… again. He shuddered at the unpleasant memories of the incidents in Forth Worth and Detroit. 

But the reckless decisions made during slow times had gotten him into quite a few troublesome spots as well; for instance, the Atlantis mission.

He had roamed the underground for a few decades, sticking close to the safe places while he learned the ins and outs of his new condition. Before his turning, he had no ideas that there was an entire society that coexisted beside the mundane one where most people dwelled. The members of this society referred to themselves as fernal. Once John grew bored of the tedious, dull, stagnant life he had been spending with others of his kind, he decided to go back to the mundane world, where at least things changed and moved and there was some excitement to be had.

It had been the late forties when he had gone underground, after the accident. He had popped his head up every few years, changed his identity, moved money around and explored a bit. But throughout those decades he had always had his sire drawing him back below, bringing him back to the fold. After their falling out, John had washed his hands of the lot of them, abandoned the coven and gone above. Needless to say, he was not their favorite son any longer, that choice spot was no longer his to claim. He had heard that Dave, his former lieutenant, had become Patrick’s new favorite and right hand in the wake of John’s noisy, messy and expensive exodus. Amused at John’s brash show of bravado and initiative, Patrick might forgive him for walking away from the coven, but he would never forgive John for burning the wine cellar. Never. Let Dave run Sheppard Industries and make money for the family and play the good little haima. John was done with it. He wanted more than life in the shadows had to offer him.

It was not easy to get away, so few ever managed it that it was almost unheard of. But John had found a way. He went back to the military, something that his sire and the rest of his haima family could never have anticipated him doing. The military had ultimately been the cause of his turning; the mission that had led to the end of his mundane life had been undertaken on the orders of the Fernal Branch of the armed forces. When he had first learned of the Fernal Branch and its part in his turning, he had been quite vocal in his protests about the existence of such an organization. Their experiments had made him what he was, had stolen his normal, mortal life. He refused to serve them. He had avoided them for decades, though he had occasionally run into members of the service now and then. 

Out on his own, John called on contacts that owed him favors and was able to build a credible background to get himself into the Air Force. An identity good enough to fool their background check was expensive, but worth it in the end. As a joke, he kept his haima family name, calling himself John Sheppard. It amused him to do so. Using his mind clouding abilities, when it came time for his entrance medical exams, the doctors saw what John wanted them to see in his test results; they saw a normal, healthy human being. 

John had been too long below, he wanted the sky again. When he was finally allowed to fly, that first time back in the cockpit, with the stick in his hand, it was as if he had come home. The sky embraced him, welcomed him, soothed his soul as nothing else had since the day his B-52 had gone down over Nevada. He knew he had a stupid ass grin on his face as he looked out at the sun and felt the warmth of it through the windshield. He was so very, very glad that popular myth about blood children was wrong about the sun. If he had to hide away from the sun, John was certain he would have deliberately succumbed to the forever sleep long ago. 

The Air Force offered him distraction. For the first few years, he was on his best behavior, following orders and racking up commendations and skills. He wanted to fly planes and helicopters more than anything, and if toeing the line was the way to get there, then so be it, he would follow orders.

Eventually, the Fernal Branch got wind of his presence in their domain. John had run, but he had not run far enough. He found himself transferred to the command of a fringe division of the Fernal Branch, one operating in the mundane world, but heavily manned and commanded by fernal of various breeds. John knew it the day he reported in, he could smell it in the blood, and easily identified his new commanding officer as allaghi. It was almost the worst case scenario for a blood child to be under the command of an allaghi. The truce between the two races had always been fragile and tensions had always run high. The fernal communities of Allos had clearly defined territories where each race resided, rarely mixing. His commanding officer knew John for what he was as well, and thus began a dance of faux civility and a pattern of barely sticking to the letter of his orders that found John in trouble more often than not. 

Afghanistan was a disaster from start to finish. He had been banished to the desert in an attempt to break him and was yanked away from his assignments any time he started to get comfortable or seemed complacent. It was a game between John and his CO, to see which of them could hold out longer before snapping. Eventually, John blinked, he couldn’t follow the order to retreat, he could not leave his team behind the lines while he escaped to safety. If he had not crashed the damned rescue chopper, he would have been hailed as a hero, but fate was against him and he went down and found himself exiled to Antarctica as the cost of his failure.

It wasn’t too terrible being in the frozen wastes. It was pretty damned cold, but he could deal with it, though it was hard not to succumb to lengthy sleep. He was given plenty of space, not too many people on base bothered with him. There had been a few allaghi on base, they didn’t mind the weather at all and were well suited to life in the ice and snow. When he first arrived, there had been a few tussles, but they figured out fairly quickly that he could protect himself, and that he had no designs on their territory, so they left him alone. 

He was the only haima on the base, likely the only one on the continent. Those in control of the Fernal Branch probably thought that banishment to the bottom of the world was the worst punishment they could put on him. To strand a haima away from civilization, in the cold, with no coven around him for support and succor would have broken most of his race. But John had forsaken the usual ways and he really didn’t miss the pressures others of his kind would exert upon him. It was kind of liberating. He was finally outside the reach of the Sheppard family. Sure, he was freezing his nuts off, but not only could his sire not get to him, he was almost out of reach of the Fernal Branch. He had only needed to go to a frozen hell to achieve it.

Flying choppers made John happy. The quiet and wide open space of the ice fields was soothing to him and he embraced it. He knew eventually the boredom would come and it wouldn’t be enough to occupy him, but that day had been a long way away and until then, John had been content to ferry researchers around the frozen territory. 

Then came the day when he heard the rumor about an expedition in the area, the base was abuzz with theories and gossip. It was pretty hush-hush, details about the expedition was above his security clearance. He was mildly curious, but not enough to go looking for information and get his ass in more trouble. He was already on probation as it was. Rousted from his bunk one morning, he was ordered to fly a General out to the secret base. 

General O’Neill wasn’t too bad. Unlike most brass he seemed to be a pretty regular kind of guy. He certainly handled a near-death experience very well. John was certain that if it had not been for his preternatural reflexes, he and O’Neill would have been a smoldering smear on the ice field. Coming back from that would have been absolute agony for John, it would have taken years for his body to regenerate. The weapon that had been coming at them was unlike anything Sheppard had ever seen, though O’Neill seemed familiar enough with the tech when he put the chopper down and they picked up the drone. 

He toddled along into the research base after the General, intending to get some coffee to sooth his jangled nerves. Caffeine was a necessity to him. He could go a year without blood, but a day without caffeine might just do him in. O’Neill ordered him not to touch anything. But that didn’t stop John from looking. His natural curiosity led him to explore, and he wandered through the base, looking around as people worked. There seemed to be a mix of civilians and military working on this project. He paused as an allaghi walked past him. The big soldier stopped and gave him a glance, but seemed mollified when John held his hand out by his hip in the ‘no trouble’ signal. The allaghi moved away without saying a word, there were no growls or sneers, the confrontation had been neatly avoided. 

Something drew him towards a chamber that had a chair in the middle of it. He wasn’t sure what it was that had urged him forward, but something about that damned chair had been calling out to him. He needed to touch it. Once he had done so, he needed to sit in it. It had become a single focus in his mind, everything around him faded to a dull hum. The chair lit up as it slid back and John felt a surge of energy around him. It was like nothing he had ever experienced in his life. He felt power drumming through every cell of his body. 

There was a fuss, and shouting and some accusations, but John was only vaguely listening, he was too enthralled by the chair and how it was making him feel. A pushy guy in civilian clothes gave him an order and John was suddenly looking up at a map of the solar system. 

He wasn’t sure what exactly was going on, but they wanted to take his blood after that and test it. Red flags went up in his mind, he couldn’t let them do that! He had to pay close attention to figure out what it was they were looking for. Some kind of gene, it was the gene that made it possible for him to utilize the chair. Apparently, it wasn’t only haima that could make the thing work, which was a relief; he had feared that he might have accidentally outed himself. He let the Scottish allaghi doctor take a blood sample and waited to see what the results might show. They didn’t seem to notice or be concerned with anything other than the presence of this ATA gene, so John relaxed slightly and observed. In the end didn’t have to exert any undue influences to make the medical staff see anything that was not there or forget what they had seen in their test results. 

O’Neill raised his security clearance, debriefed him and offered him a position with the expedition, making it clear that he would be an idiot to refuse. A one way trip to another planet? It would certainly put him outside the reach of the Sheppard coven; he would never have to be involved in his sire’s politics again. The expedition was likely beyond the touch of the Fernal Branch as well, as it was being run by Stargate Command, which seemed to be a mundane military division. But if he went with the expedition, he might never see another haima again. He wasn’t positive at that time that he would he be able to do it. He was unsure if he could survive alone on another planet. It was a risk, striking out on his own without another haima for support. Sure, he considered himself a loner, but it was easy to do that when he knew where the others were if he needed them. 

In the end, he had flipped a coin, leaving it to the bitch Fate to decide for him. It would give him something else to blame her for if it all went to hell.

~*~

He almost backed out of the whole thing when he met his new commanding officer, Colonel Marshall Sumner, a third generation Fernal Branch officer and a tenth generation allaghi. Sumner hated Sheppard on sight. The feeling was pretty much mutual, but John approached it with his usual careless attitude, which he had found typically infuriated uptight allaghi. ‘If you can’t beat them - piss them off’ had always been one of his personal mottos. The more Sumner brayed and complained and tried to get Sheppard booted off the mission, the more John wanted to go. He had long ago admitted to himself that he had a contrary streak to go with his stubborness. Stargate Command was purely human run, the Fernal Branch didn’t have a say in what went down within Cheyenne Mountain, so Sumner couldn’t use any of his influences to have Sheppard cut from the mission. The best he could do was jump up and down and point at John’s record of insubordination and rule skirting, which Doctor Weir was willing to overlook in her lust after his super ATA gene.

John was relieved to find that there were some other fernal on the mission. The young Lieutenant Ford was a deigma. There were a few allaghi in the marine ranks, all fanatically loyal to Sumner, especially Sergeant Bates. They had their own little cartel, with Sumner as the head. Bates had sniffed at Sheppard and growled low, making it clear that he would love a chance to go nose to nose with a haima in a contest of superiority. 

Two of the research scientists were alastor - walking dead. John wondered how they had managed to get past the SGC physical, until he realized that Beckett had done the tests and he was fernal. John sensed the presence of others, but did not have time enough before the mission left to seek out and identify everyone of fernal nature. 

He wondered if Doctor McKay knew he was a phenix? Typically, most rebirths went through their entire lives without knowing they were reliving a life. McKay seemed like the type to only believe in things his science could prove to him, so John doubted the scientist knew. There were no other haima on the mission. He was alone as he walked through the Gate to the Pegasus galaxy.

It took a few hours, but once things got somewhat sorted out, Sumner tracked John down and cornered him alone in a corridor. Atlantis was his command, his territory, and he apparently meant to make sure that the sole haima on his grounds knew who gave the orders. Sumner slammed Sheppard up against a wall - because it was something allaghi liked to do to show off their brute strength. Holding him there, he growled low in his throat, in a very menacing manner, because again, hello, allaghi. Since this allaghi was his commanding officer, John decided to see how far Sumner would take this little power display before he reacted.

“I didn’t want you on this mission,” Sumner growled.

“That was abundantly clear from the start, sir,” John choked out.

Sumner twisted the front of Sheppard’s shirt and shook him a little. “If you give me cause, I will tear your throat out. Do you hear me, you worthless blooder?”

“As you are yelling it in my face, I have to admit to hearing you loud and clear, sir.” This was complete posturing, John was not at all intimidated, even though his feet were a good foot off the floor and Sumner was holding his throat tightly enough to strangle him. If he had been completely human, John might have worried, but like most haima he could go without air for a little while if necessary. It was getting harder to talk, however, with the grip Sumner had around his larynx.

“Smart asses, every last one of you. Total waste of meat.” The Colonel shook him again, John’s dangling feet swayed back and forth slightly from the force of it. “How in the hell did you get onto my mission?”

“Just lucky, I guess. Right place, right time, right genes.” John gave him his best shit-eating grin, the one that used to drive his sire crazy. 

It seemed to have a similar effect on the Colonel. “Argh!” Sumner shouted and John found himself hurled across the corridor. He hit the wall and slid to the floor. It was good timing, John might not need to breathe as much as a full human did, but he still needed to breathe now and then. Turning blue from lack of oxygen brought unwanted attention, John had no desire to wake up in the infirmary with tubes and masks and monitors all over and in him.

“If I find out you’ve been snacking on my marines, I will end you, do you understand me, blooder?” Sumner pointed a warning finger at John and took a threatening step towards him when John didn’t answer immediately. “Filthy bloodsucker, answer me!” Sumner certainly didn’t hold back on the rude name calling, did he?

“I don’t so much suck as lick. I really don’t need that much to get by. Surely you haven’t bought into all the Hollywood hype about bloodbaths and gushing fountains of gore and slashed arteries, Colonel?” John levered himself upright and decided a glimpse of fang now might irritate Sumner. He let his fangs slide down and his lip ride up just enough to give the allaghi a peek. “If I believed all that hype and rot, I might expect you to go baying at the moon once a month. I’d certainly be wearing a hell of a lot more silver jewelry as a rule, I love keeping changers at arm’s distance.” He could use rude slang too.

For a moment, it seemed like Sumner was going to leap at him and go for his throat. John wouldn’t have been surprised if he had provoked Sumner into a full changeover to his other form, whatever kin he might be. But then Sumner froze and got a queer look on his face. He tilted his head and regarded Sheppard oddly for a moment. “You are deliberately provoking me.”

Sheppard flashed him some more fang and did not deny the allegation.

The Colonel took a step back and seemed to be forcing himself to calm down. “Why are you here, Sheppard?”

“General O’Neill asked me to come because Doctor Weir likes my gene.”

“You’re here without a cartel... coven. There are no other haima here. You’ve got no support. Why here?”

Climbing to his feet, Sheppard made a show of dusting himself off. “This is the furthest I could get from my sire without actually dying my way off the planet. I figured I’d give it a try.”

“Haima don’t willingly leave their sires,” Sumner stated flatly, shaking his head at the illogic of John’s statement. John was challenging his knowledge and belief of the way things were. Allaghi generally did not respond well to change or puzzles or things that went against the rules and order they knew.

John gave an elegant shrug. “I did. Were there any other threats you felt the need to convey, sir, or are we done here for now?”

“Are we going to have a problem, Major?” 

“I hadn’t planned on it, Colonel. I’m just a guy trying to get by and have been that way for a long time,” Sheppard replied, meeting Sumner’s eyes and refusing to look away. This was the real test, the real taking of measure. He could not back down or shy away now. He knew he had to maintain eye contact. He didn’t try to push anything at Sumner, he wasn’t trying to knock the man down, he didn’t want a contest. If Sumner got the slightest inkling that John might be using any of his haima abilities on him, he might decide to act using his own. An enraged allaghi in the throes of fury could tear a haima to pieces in seconds. John could not regenerate if Sumner literally tore his head off and it was a possibility, if he went ballistic.

Sumner gave a brisk nod and stepped back, indicating that the staring session was at an end. “Don’t give me cause to come looking for you. Keep your nose clean, and your fangs up inside your jaw.”

“I’ll do that, Colonel,” John replied, without the slightest trace of sarcasm. He watched the Colonel stalk away. It seemed to John that he and Sumner had come to terms for a truce; so long as he didn’t make waves, Sumner seemed willing to put up with his presence. It was a step up from his previous assignment, a better arrangement than the one he had with other allaghi COs in the past. He was relieved as he turned to go in search of the quarters he had been assigned.

The truce between them almost didn’t hold through their first meeting with Teyla Emmagen of the Athosians, but John managed to charm her and avoid any open conflict with the Colonel. Rather than being awed and tongue tied in his first encounter with ‘aliens’, John was surprisingly relaxed meeting the Athosians. To John, they were just others that he had not come to know yet. They seemed and smelled human to him. He wondered if the people in Pegasus had an Allos - an other world - with fernal races of people that lived a life outside that of the majority? It was something to consider in the future, something he could occupy himself with investigating, if the boredom started to seep in at some point.

Teyla was very interesting and a pleasant hostess. He even liked the tea, though he preferred coffee as a rule. He listened to the conversation of the Athosians, he had learned long ago that he could learn more by being silent and just listening than he could by demanding information. He was able to figure out the hierarchy in the tent, which of the Athosians had more pull than the others, which the group deferred to. He got a taste of Teyla’s leadership style, and he was impressed by her calm and her poise, as well as the wisdom of her words when she spoke. He learned much over tea. 

He learned more later, when Teyla took him on a tour of the old city. Different cultures had always interested him and he enjoyed seeing the ruins and listening to the stories Teyla told him. 

The easy, calm, seemingly perfect first contact with an alien culture all went to hell in a split second. John would never forget the sound of the engines of the darts that flew over the village. The high-pitched whine hurt his sensitive ears. The Wraith had come. These were not wraiths like those that inhabited the other world back home, not wraiths of fernal origin. These were the creatures that had kept the people of the Pegasus galaxy living in terror for many generations, according to Teyla and her people. 

The peaceful and gracious Athosians were overrun in a very short time by the enemies that came by air. John didn’t realize at first that the beams of light were not destroying people, but rather ‘beaming’ them away. The Wraith were stealing people from the ground. He almost fell victim to their mind tricks, but Teyla’s warning snapped him out of it. It made him angry that The Wraith could influence his mind.

When the attack stopped, many of the Athosians including their leaders Teyla and Halling were missing and their village was a smoking ruin. That was what a culling did to the people here, it destroyed them, it stole the best of them and wrecked whatever progress might have been made since the last culling. No small wonder there was no industry or technology on this world. According to his conversation with Teyla, most worlds they traded with were like Athos. 

Colonel Sumner and Sergeant Bates had also been taken during the culling. Not knowing what else to do, Sheppard had gathered the remaining Atlantis forces and the remnants of the Athosian people and returned to the city to regroup and figure out how to find their missing people.

It had taken a bit of talking, and a small application of persuasion for Sheppard to convince Doctor Weir to allow him to mount a rescue. He felt a little guilty using his abilities on the woman, but she was very stubborn and John really didn’t want to be the senior military officer and he wanted the stupid allaghi back in his office as soon as possible and so he pushed his will on Elizabeth. But he promised himself that day that he wasn’t going to do it again in the future. Unless it was absolutely necessary.

Despite the seriousness of the mission, Sheppard was utterly thrilled with the opportunity to play with the Ancient ships that he had insisted on calling puddlejumpers. The tiny ship responded to his thoughts. He had always felt that he was one with his bird when he flew, but the Ancient puddlejumpers took things to an entirely new level. He really was connected to the ship as he piloted it through the Gate and to the coordinates the Wraith had gone to. 

Meeting the Wraith face to face had been an experience John had not relished in the slightest. Since coming to Pegasus and encountering them, people on the expedition had started referring to The Wraith as ‘space vampires’ because they sucked the life out of people. It grated on John’s nerves, but what could he do? It wasn’t like he could set the record straight or claim slander against his kind. The Wraith of Pegasus were nothing like real haima. They took until their victim was dead, taking everything, destroying as they fed. They reproduced and spread and consumed everything. These Wraith fed on people’s essence, real haima just needed to injest a bit of blood now and then in order to stay healthy. 

He had tracked down Sumner, easy enough to do since he and Bates were the only allaghi on the Wraith hive, and he knew Sumner’s scent. His scent was like a blinking trail leading John right to the chamber where he was being ‘questioned’ by the Wraith Queen. But he had arrived too late. Sumner was a dead man. Even if Sumner had survived in the decrepit condition John had found him in, Sumner’s very nature would not let him continue to exist in such a state. Health, power and status were the main driving forces of allaghi society. The old, weak and dying were looked down upon and outright shunned in some communities that followed the old ways. Colonel Sumner had met his eyes from across the room. He had known John was there, watching him suffer. 

For the first time in years, John used his ability to speak directly into someone’s mind. _”Sir, do you want it to end? I have a shot.”_ Sumner would not be able to answer in kind, but he could signal.

There was a silent plea for mercy in Sumner’s eyes, he nodded and his lips moved soundlessly, ‘Sheppard, do it.’ Watching for the permission, Sheppard had not thought twice about putting the bullet through Sumner’s brain. He was saving the man the trouble of doing it himself later, giving him an honorable death under the circumstances. He died at John’s hand, not at the hand of an enemy, or worse, by his own.

“Colonel Sheppard, come in, please.”

He sat upright in his chair and tapped his radio, glad for the distraction from his wandering thoughts of the past. “Morning Chuck, what’s up?”

“There’s been a security breach, sir. A team is on the way to investigate, but I thought I should bring it to your attention.”

“Good thinking. Where is it? I’ll meet the SFs.” He was out of his seat and already heading for the door. He hoped it was something more than the wind or a computer glitch, but of course he wanted it to be something less than the Wraith. 

“Building Eleven, section three, sub level two,” Chuck replied. “Sergeant Mehra and her team are in the building and heading down the stairs now.”

He went to the balcony at the end of the hallway and went outside. The most direct route from this building to building eleven was one only a fernal could take. The remnants of the storm winds blasted at him as he stepped up onto the railing. Of all the abilities being haima gave him, this was one of the few he actually enjoyed. He took a deep breath and then leapt off the rail and into the air. 

This should be impossible, he had been terrified the first time his sire had taken him to a rooftop and instructed him to jump off. He had refused and Patrick had picked him up and tossed him over. Like an infant that swam when dropped in the water, he had flown. Flight that defied logic and science. But the changes being turned had made to his bone and muscle structure had given John the sky. Extending his arms, he allowed the air currents to lift him and bounce him around a bit before aiming for a balcony he knew was never used on Building Nine. He had landing areas scoped out throughout the city, just for this purpose. 

It was an easy leap from Nine to Eleven. It was raining, so he almost went inside and took the stairs down, but at the last minute he decided ‘screw it!’ and threw himself off the balcony and glided down to ground level. So, he’d be a little wet, it wouldn’t make him melt or anything. Mehra’s team was examining the door leading down to the sub levels when he caught up with them. The security teams were hardly ever surprised to see him anymore, it had been a long while since anyone had bothered asking how he knew or how he had gotten there so fast. They all assumed he had some kind of weird relationship with the city’s computer system because of the gene, which he did, but that was different.

His eyes adjusted quickly to the dark and he was watching over Sergent Sils’s shoulder as they went down the stairwell. They gone down only one flight when John’s senses detected a presence. “There’s something down here,” he warned the others. 

The security teams had also come to trust his ‘spidey senses’ as they called John’s weird intuition. Silently, the team spread out a bit, on high alert, keeping their weapons at the ready. 

Crap. It was a coulro, a death walker. He hated walkers. They were worse than alastor because they had agendas, most were vengeful souls that had a vendetta to carry out. Alastor were mild mannered and just wanted to carry on existing. In John’s experience, most coulro wanted to tear someone’s heart out and shove it up into their brainpan through their nasal passages. Death and hatred and purpose gave them strength beyond that of mortals. They were hard to take down too. He had seen allaghi cartel leaders, arguably the strongest creatures on Earth, go one on one with coulro and lose. There was no way John was going to physically tangle with this critter, not alone.

“Anyone have any C-4?” John asked quietly. Mehra’s eyes went wide at the question and she shook her head, as did Sils and the other two marines. “Grenade?” Across the stairway, Sils gave a sheepish grin and tugged a grenade off his belt and passed it over to John. 

“We’re going to talk about standard ordinance for security duty, Sils,” Mehra whispered furiously.

“Cadman gave it to me!” John heard Sils whisper back defensively as he crept towards the stairwell door.

“Cadman is a menace. Don’t take stuff from Cadman!” Mehra replied. John chuckled, Cadman would be amused by the statement as well, she was the most mischievous stoicheo he had ever encountered. She loved blowing things up, and setting things ablaze, which made perfect sense since she was aligned with fire.

John opened the door slowly, wondering how long this walker had been here. Was it one of the Atlantis people? He had not done a check in the morgue lately, he should probably do that, count the chilled noses and make sure none of their dearly departed expedition members were traipsing around the city instead of waiting for their final trip home to Earth. 

Sometimes coulro hibernated for generations. This sucker could be an Ancient. Wouldn’t that be a pain in the ass? They finally find another Ancient and it turns out to be an undead spirit bent on murder. 

He heard shuffling off to the right and quickly looked and saw movement. It was close by, this was not going to be a long wait for an answer to his ponderings. He tapped his radio, which he had put on the same channel as the security team. “Stay in the stairwell until I say move.” He didn’t want witnesses to what he was about to do, or victims should he fail. 

“Roger,” Mehra replied. 

Stepping out into the wide passageway, Sheppard called, “This is my place, you shouldn’t be here.” He could smell the reek coming off the carcass, fleshrot and salt water and hatred.

The shuffling noises stopped. Then he heard a rough, raspy chuckle. “Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here, Sheppard. Are you lost? Since when do you prowl the sublevels?”

He knew that voice, well, the ruins of that voice. Crap, crap, crap! Of all the luck, it had to be him. “I go where I need to go. Especially when someone is trespassing. Like you are now, Michael. Your ticket was punched a while ago, you need to go.” John had moved over to the wall and was pressed against it as he slid slowly towards the intruder. 

“I just have one little thing to do, then I’ll be off to greener pastures. Tell me, where is Teyla Emmagen, Sheppard? She and I have unfinished business.” There was death in the voice, the hollow coldness of the grave. Coulro were nothing if not single minded, at least now he knew what this particular ghoul wanted. 

“Would you believe me if I told you she left the city and is happily raising her kid on Ceti-Alpha Five?” John used a little power to throw his voice, to make it seem like he was still standing back by the stairwell entry. He could see the shambling form now, dragging one leg as he made his way towards where he assumed John was waiting.

“No, I would not. Where is she? I know she is still here, I feel her presence. I dragged myself from the Lantean sea to find her, she will join me, I want her with me, she has to pay for what she did to me!”

John threw his voice to make it seem like he was retreating down the corridor, though he stayed where he was. “You know, Mikey, that’s one really powerful hate you’ve got going on there, it’s gonna burn you up and destroy you. A lot of folks say that’s the kind of thing that destroys a soul forever, leaves nothing to carry over to the other side.”

Michael shrieked in fury. “Do you think I care? I will see her destroyed as she destroyed me! I will have her life, no matter the cost!” Well, he knew he was dead, that was good, dealing with a coulro that still thought they were alive was really annoying.

Waiting for the undead Wraith hybrid to draw even with his position in the dark hallway, John wondered what Teyla would think about this. He had no idea how the Athosians thought on matters of the undead. The subject had never come up. It would make an interesting conversation, he would have to ask her one day. 

Seeing the coulro, Sheppard thout to himself, ‘Wow, what was left of Michael was in very sad shape.’ Going nowhere fast, he was dragging one leg and one arm hung useless and twisted from the shoulder, swinging with each jerking step the undead creature took. Sheppard pulled the pin on the grenade and darted forward. He caught the coulro by the shoulder and swung him around, throwing him off balance. He slammed the grenade forcefully at the base of the throat, and the soft, rotted flesh and bone easily gave way and he was able to shove it deep inside Michael’s chest. He yanked his hand back and danced away.

“Sheppard!” Michael roared, flailing out in an attempt to grab him. Still off balance, he lurched sideways, not realizing that he was a few seconds from final annihilation.

“I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye before your flight the last time, Mikey. You know, I never liked you. You were an evil bastard. I’m glad Teyla killed you. Pegasus is better off without you.”

Then he ran, quickly getting clear as the grenade exploded and the coulro that had once been a living Wraith-human hybrid exploded in a spray of rotted gore. There was no way those chunks were going to reassemble into anything capable of exacting revenge before a century or maybe five had passed.

“All clear!” John said into the radio.

The security team piled through the door, looking around. “What was it, sir?” Mehra called.

“Some kind of Ancient science experiment. Bad juju, stay back. The grenade took care of it, but maybe we should hit the leftover mess with a flamethrower, just to be sure there’s nothing toxic.”

He heard Sils call for a hazmat team and flamethrower and smiled. Nope, no way in hell was Mikey coming back from this. He was one obliterated coulro. 

Leaning against a wall, John waited for the hazmat team to clean up the mess, making sure they got every chunk that remained. He wasn’t taking chances that Michael would walk again, ever.

~*~

“Sir?” Lorne stayed by the door, not walking out onto the balcony until Sheppard glanced back over his shoulder and smiled at him in welcome.

“Hey Lorne. What’s up?” His XO didn’t come to him often, he didn’t have to, he always knew exactly where Sheppard was. Of all the personnel that had joined the expedition since contact with Earth was reestablished, Lorne had fulfilled his potential most fully. He was vreite, a rare breed of fernal with a set of abilities few others possessed. The one that he put to the most use in the city was the one that told him where anyone or anything he had “tagged” was at any time. He had “tagged” John the first day when they shook hands, and John had never been able to hide from him since. Sometimes it was as annoying as it was useful.

Lorne walked over to stand beside him. He seemed nervous as he said, “AG-3 came back with a curious report, I thought you would want to be informed immediately.”

Leaning on the rail, John replied, “Okay, spit it out, I won’t bite.”

“Given your nature, that is a relief to hear, sir.” Lorne held out a datapad, which was cued up to a photograph. The away teams all carried cameras, not that they ever remembered to use them. This time, someone had. 

“No,” John said, flipping through other images, which all showed the same thing. He knew better than to think what he saw was impossible, he was just annoyed that it was happening. “Dammit to hell. I killed him. Twice! I checked the second time, he was stone cold dead!” Sheppard fumed as he handed the datapad back. “Any ideas?”

“He must be fernal, or the Pegasus version of fernal. We’ve seen coulro and alastor and that thing on M76-598 that Teyla called a monster and the allaghi that were with her claimed were therio.”

“But he’s not anything I ever saw before, he doesn’t smell like one of the risen races, I did not smell death on him. Neither did Carson and he’s dog-kin, I trust his nose more than my own, even if it is cloned.” Sheppard ran a hand through his hair and stared at Lorne, at a loss for an explanation.

“Don’t bite my head off for suggesting this, sir. Maybe we need to bring Ronon or Teyla into the loop. We need to pick their brains about the Pegasus fernal races. There’s only so much the anthropology department can tell us without us telling them what we’re looking for and why we need to know.”

John had never been so tempted to break The Trust and tell anyone mundane anything about the fernal world as he was now. But old habits died hard. Lorne’s idea had merit, perhaps it was a proper time and place to go against tradition. Mundanes were told in cases of extreme emergency, or when telling them would protect more fernals than keeping The Trust would save. “Yeah, let’s tell them both, neither of them are the type to go off telling tales.”

“Yeah, neither of them have the makings of a Stoker,” Lorne agreed. “This is on both of our heads, sir, should we ever be called on it.”

 

They called Ronon and Teyla up to Lorne’s office and sat them down. John glanced over at Lorne, but his XO shook his head and dropped the explanation back on him. 

Leaning against the desk, John tried to be casual as he said, “So, there’s something going on and we need to get your input on it.”

“Of course John, you have only to ask,” Teyla replied.

Ronon had pulled a knife from somewhere on his person and was cleaning under his fingernails. John resisted the urge to do a surface read on his friend to see if the boredom was real or feigned. Using haima mind tricks on his friends was mildly distasteful to John, it felt a bit dirty. He knew the big guy was paying attention while posturing for Lorne and Teyla’s benefit. “What she said,” Ronon grumbled.

“We’ve been withholding some information from you,” never having done this, John was stumbling over how to phrase the explanation.

Teyla was calm as she attempted to rescue him from his difficulty. “There are surely many things you keep from us, John, as we are civilians.”

“This is more on a personal level.” John looked over at Lorne.

Lorne grinned and waved at him. “I can’t demonstrate anything. This is all on you, sir.”

“I hate this,” John complained in a low voice. 

“Quit whining and show them your fangs,” Lorne laughed. Being cohorts in this breaking of The Trust was making Lorne a bit more familiar, it seemed. That was good, he’d always been too stiff around John anyway. 

Ronon sat up a little straighter in his chair and stared at John. “Fangs?”

“Way to out me, Evan.”

“Just trying to help,” the vreite grinned at him.

It had been a while since he had needed to use his fangs, which retracted back into his jaw. It had taken him years to master using the altered muscles in his mouth to be able to do it. It still hurt to do it, though he healed quickly from the wounds. “Ow,” he muttered as he clenched down and willed the change. He felt the pain as the razor sharp tips slid through his gums and heard the click as they settled back against his regular teeth. He opened his mouth so that Teyla and Ronon could get a quick look. 

“You have fangs? Is this your secret?” Teyla asked as she stood and walked over to him. She took his chin in her hand and turned his face up towards the light, to look closely. “These are unlike Wraith. I sense you have more to tell us, John.”

“Do you have fangs too?” Ronon demanded of Lorne.

“Nope,” Lorne rocked on his heels and grinned cheekily. He was entirely too amused at John’s discomfort. 

Talking with the fangs had taken time to get used to as well. “We aren’t entirely human. Lorne and I are what our people call fernal. I’m haima, we all have fangs. My kind need to occasionally take blood...”

Ronon pointed a finger at John. “Vam...”

“Do not even say it!” John hissed pointing back at Ronon. “Not. Fiction is not reality, not even close.”

“Are you the walking dead?” Ronon snapped, annoyed that John had cut him off.

“No. I’m as alive as you are. That’s a myth.” 

Teyla released her grip on his chin and stepped back. “Do you possess a soul?”

“You guys watch too many movies, I swear. If I was born with a soul I still have it, nothing changed. I’m physically different than a human now, that’s all.”

Lorne was sitting on the edge of the desk and was apparently going to take the opportunity to grill him. “You were born human, not haima? 

“I was born in 1907, in Kansas, to plain, ordinary, everyday human farmers. I learned to fly to dust the crops. When the second world war came, I joined up to fly for the military. I was on a cargo run over Nevada and there was an accident.” It had not been an accident, but the others did not need to know about the Fernal Branch’s early experiments, tests and plots. “My co-pilot was killed and I was almost dead, bleeding out from a gut wound. There was no way I would live until help got there. Our navigator, Pat Sheppard, was pretty banged up too. He was haima.”

“He turned you?” Ronon asked and Sheppard cursed The Trust breakers that had leaked so many real details along with the myths into popular culture. 

“Doing so saved both of our lives. He needed blood, a lot more than usual in order to heal. Turning me gave me time to heal enough to survive the injuries. Pat was part of the military called the Fernal Branch, which operates within the US military. After the crash, a team from the Fernal Branch got to us first and I was taken to a fernal-run hospital. I never went back to my old life, my family was told I died. I was listed as killed in action by the military.” 

Ronon was eyeing him skeptically. “Any of the stuff we see in Earth movies true?”

“You go out in the sun while on missions with us.” Teyla said, ticking off facts on her fingers. “I have seen you eat food and you have had many drinks while in my presence.” She laughed suddenly, “You eat spaghetti with sauce, and Rodney has accused you of having garlic breath on many occasions.”

“All part of the fiction,” Lorne remarked. When John didn’t enlighten anyone further, he said, “I think he heals quickly.”

John rolled his eyes and tossed Lorne a dirty look. “If I’m not blood starved, I do. It’s the one time when more than a few licks of blood will make a big difference.”

“You did not heal from the iratus virus,” Teyla said.

Shuddering, John snapped, “Don’t remind me. It hit me so hard because of my haima physiology. If you or Ronon had been bitten, I doubt you would have changed the way I did. Carson was having the devil of a time keeping my genetics and blood work hidden from the rest of the medical team through that.”

Teyla tilted her head at this. “Carson knows?”

“Yes.”

“He’s one of you?” Ronon asked. They both seemed to be taking this news rather well, considering how bizarre it must be to them. John nodded and Ronon asked, “Haima?”

“No, but it is not my place to tell you any more than that. He’s vreite.” John pointed at Lorne. Let him be uncomfortable for a bit.

“He has super speed,” Lorne tossed back.

“He can’t get lost.”

Teyla and Ronon were watching the byplay like it was a tennis match, it was beginning to feel like it to John. 

“I got lost... once.”

John pulled a face, which wasn’t the wisest moves, his fangs scraped along his lip. “Let me guess, you were four or five and it was a shopping mall?” He licked the blood off his lip and let his fangs withdraw, the demonstration didn’t seem to be necessary any longer, the point was made.

“Shut up, I was scared,” Lorne snapped. “And I was three.”

“I do not think you are telling us your secret without cause, John,” Teyla said gently as John was trying to come with a suitably snarky response for Lorne.

Picking up the datapad from the desk, John cued up the images of Kolya and turned the pad around so his friends could see it. “No, we’re not. This is why we told you, why we broke The Trust to tell you about us.”

“He is dead,” Teyla whispered.

“Apparently not. We needed to ask you if you know anything about fernal in Pegasus. Anything would help, legends about creatures that walk after death, beings that can’t die.”

Ronon had his arms crossed and was looking at John, rather than at the pictures of Kolya. Interesting. “Can you die?”

Nodding, John replied honestly, “Cut off my head, carve out my heart, deprive me of oxygen for a few hours, cut me deep enough - yeah, I can die.”

“Stelly,” Ronon grunted.

“Huh?” John and Lorne replied in unison.

“Stelly,” the Satedan repeated, pointing to the photo. “Men who don’t die. Kolya is probably a stelly.”

Teyla was now looking at Ronon with curiosity. “I have never heard this word. There are stories, usually told to frighten the children and keep them from wandering too far from the village at night. Tales of creatures that were once living but returned from the afterlife because their journey here was not finished. After being cast out if they could not find their way back, they were rumored to have been angry and vengeful. My people called them naroose, I have heard words for them on other worlds as well.”

“Your naroose sound like our coulhro.” John did not think now was the time, or if there would ever be a time to tell Teyla that Michael had come back with the intent of finding her. It woul dserve no purpose than to upset her. “Ronon, tell us more about these stelly, do you think they exist or are they a myth?”

Ronon nodded. “They exist.”

“You’ve seen one?” Lorne asked, excited to have a lead.

Sighing heavily, Ronon replied, “I am one. It’s why they made me a runner.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” John said, shaking his head as he took in this new information about his friend. It seemed he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

“That too,” Ronon said gravely. “The soulless wander forever.”

“I am sure you have a soul, Ronon,” John assured him. “You’re just fernal.”

The big man shrugged. “I was dead. I died on Sateda, with the others. And then I wasn’t dead and the Wraith had me. I’m dead, a stelly.”

John reached over and tugged on a dreadlock. “Does this grow?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you aren’t dead. If you had no soul, you wouldn’t care what happens to people, you wouldn’t be happy or sad, you wouldn’t feel anything. You might be stelly, but that does not mean you are soulless.”

The look Ronon gave John was an odd one, it was almost hopeful. He gave a brisk nod. “If Kolya is stelly, then the only way to get rid of him is to burn the body and scatter the remains to the wind.”

“That will do it for most races,” Lorne remarked. 

“So, I guess we’re going hunting,” John said, clapping his hands together. “I won’t rest until the soot of him is on the soles of my boots.”

~*~

The intelligence they were able to gather led them to a rural world that the Genii used as a training ground for their military. They stepped through the Gate and almost immediately into a jungle.

John wished he had been able to convince Stackhouse to let him bring Chuck, he really needed someone with good scent tracking for this. As the head of the Atlantis cartel after Sumner’s death and Bates’s transfer back to Earth, Stackhouse had a say in where and when the civilian allaghi under his protection went. John usually cleared any military assignments with him as well, as a courtesy. Bates, being an ass, had not gotten the same courtesy when he had still been in the city and led the cartel in Sumner’s wake. Stackhouse had requested to go on the mission to scent for them, after pointing out the difficulties involved with explaining to Elizabeth why Chuck needed to go off world. John conceded, but he still wanted Chuck’s talents. Next to Lorne, he was the best at finding stuff, better sometimes, because he didn’t have to tag anything first.

Falling into step beside Stackhouse, John muttered, “I really could have used Chuck’s nose.”

“Sir, I’m not incapable of following a scent trail,” Stackhouse said with an affronted air. “Do you have something to start me off?”

John dug in his pocket and pulled out a plastic zipper bag containing the ragged remains of some of the cloth that had been used to bind him when Kolya had held him and fed him to the Wraith, Todd. John had pocketed the piece, knowing he might one day track the Genii to exact his revenge. The day was at hand. 

He extended the bag to Stackhouse. The allaghi opened the bag and sniffed almost delicately at the rag within it. He leaned over close to John’s neck and inhaled, then sniffed the bag again. “There’s three distinct people smells here. You, a Wraith, and someone really funky. Are we tracking a coulro?”

“A stelly, the Pegasus version of an athanata.”

“How did you figure that out?” Stackhouse asked in surprise. “I’ve had no luck in finding information about our fernal counterparts out here.”

John pointed towards Ronon. “Dex told us. Think you can track the stelly?”

“If he’s on the planet, I can find him.”

“Will you do better in true form? I specifically left all the mundanes home.” John pointed to Teyla and Ronon, “They know about the fernal.”

“Who broke Trust?” Stackhouse demanded. It was the moment of truth, John would have to confess now. 

“I did. I needed to know about Pegasus fernal. We’re blind here, trying to learn from legend and mythology, hearsay and folktales.”

The allaghi leader stared at him intently and then looked over at Ronon and Teyla. “You believe they will keep The Trust?”

“I do.”

“Fine. I will trust your judgement, sir.” John breathed a sigh of relief at Stackhouse’s acceptance of the situation. Having the head of the cartel in his corner was always a very good thing. A rare thing as well. Stackhouse was by far one of the oddest allaghi John had ever met. He didn’t know what Stackhouse’s kin were, it had of course never been listed on his military or medical records. He wondered if he was going to learn one of the best kept secrets in the city today, or if Stackhouse would track in human form. Many did, when in company.

“In true form, I track better than Chuck.” Moving to a clear space in the trees, Stackhouse looked up and around the area. He slid his pack off his shoulders and handed it to John. “Could you hang on to that for me, sir?”

“I’ll take it. You gonna do something?” Ronon had obviously overheard some of the conversation. 

“Yeah,” Stacks replied, but said no more. He stripped out of his jacket and belt and toed off his boots. Silently, Teyla came over and collected the clothing as he discarded it. When he was down to his boxers, he took back the plastic baggie he had passed to John and retrieved his knife from the belt Teyla had in her arms with the bundle of his uniform. He handed both to John. “Could you cut off half of that sir? I don’t want my scent on the whole piece, if you need it again.”

John did as asked and handed the rectangle of fabric and the knife back to Stackhouse. The sergeant folded it over and cut a slit in it, then slipped it over one finger on his left hand. He put the knife back in the sheath and started to walk away from them. When they started to follow, he held up his right hand and said, “You’re gonna wanna stand back and give me room.” He glanced over his shoulder at John and grinned. 

As the allaghi stood and concentrated, John was running through all the large form kin he knew. Elephant? Bear? Rhino? Stackhouse threw back his head and looked to the sky before he suddenly clenched his arms tightly to his chest and bent at the waist. A change was painful to watch, John could only imagine how it felt to the one living through the morphing of their form. 

“Can we help him?” Teyla asked, worrying her lip as she took a slight step forward.

“No,” Ronon replied. “He has to do it.”

John gave Ronon a quick look. “You have allaghi here too,” it was a statement, not a question. 

“Galpen, man-beasts,” Ronon replied. “Only saw one in my life. He did that too when he changed.” Ronon pointed to Stackhouse, who had fallen to his knees and was panting for breath as his skin began to undulate. 

“I should have told you guys years ago,” John muttered. 

“Yeah.” Ronon agreed and cuffed John playfully on the ear. “You let me win all these years, didn’t you?”

“Kinda?”

“Next time, neither of us holds back.”

“Deal.” John grinned at his friend, anticipating their next sparring. A real workout for the first time in years would be refreshing, he wouldn’t have to hold back against a man that didn’t die.

The skin on Stackhouse’s back began to tear open, and the muscles that had been moving beneath erupted upwards. Resting on his elbows, Stackhouse screamed in agony as his arms and legs began to change and grow. He was getting bigger before their eyes as his body changed. His skin seemed to be extruding... scales?

“Holy. Shit.” John stared, but couldn’t believe what he was seeing. 

Teyla came over to stand beside him. “John?”

It took him a moment to find his voice, he was so stunned. “First Kin. He’s First Kin: the eldest of the allaghi. Everyone believes they were hunted to extinction centuries ago. It’s bad luck to even say...”

“A dragon! Cool!” Ronon exclaimed as Stackhouse reared up on his hind legs and extended his wings. Dropping his face into his hand, John shook his head. At least Ronon had been the one to say it, it would be his bad luck to deal with.

Stackhouse’s scales were a dark rusty red color. He tossed his head around, stretching out his long neck. Then he leaned back and roared, sending the sound echoing around the valley they were in. John felt a shiver of excitement run down his spine at the sound. It was so very primal and powerful, it was impossible not to be impressed. 

By the time he finished changing, Stackhouse was huge. There was not the slightest sign of humanity about him any longer. Most allaghi retained human aspects and features, Nate Stackhouse was 100% dragon. Even the slits of his eyes were reptilian. He turned those eyes towards John and blinked slowly. John walked over and reached a hand up and patted the side of Stackhouse’s neck. He felt tiny beside the legendary king of the allaghi. 

“We are so gonna talk, Stackhouse,” John said. “Do you breathe fire?”

In answer, Stackhouse lifted one enormous paw, which was the size of John’s entire body, and shoved at him, knocking him onto his ass. John couldn’t help but laugh with delight, he figured he deserved it for mentioning the myth. One of his people, one of the fernal in his city was First Kin. Stackhouse turned his head away and spat a stream of fluid at a nearby tree. The bark sizzled and smoked and the tree fell over.

“Acid! Cool!” John crowed, and wow, who knew a dragon could roll his eyes?

Stackhouse extended his wings to their full span and gave them a flutter, drying the blood from the transformation. The gust of air knocked John off his feet just as he was standing up. The muscles in Nate’s hind legs tensed and he leapt into the air, wings beating fiercely to get him airborne. And then he was streaking up into the sky, soaring on the currents above them, letting out an occasional roar of joy. John knew it was joy, he could sense it, even from this far below. 

“What are you gonna do when you find Kolya?” Ronon asked as he walked over and picked John up from the ground and set him back on his feet.

“Kick his ass. Then kill his ass. Then let Stacks spit on him. Then burn him and kick the ashes all over the place.”

Teyla clucked her tongue in disapproval. “This is a very powerful hatred you have for Kolya, John.”

“He fed me to a Wraith.”

“You got better,” Ronon pointed out. 

“It’s a good thing Todd didn’t like the way I tasted, or I’d be dead, all dead, no-coming-back-from-it dead.”

Pointing up at the sky, Teyla advised, “We should follow Sergeant Stackhouse.”

“I guess Earth vamps don’t like getting gnawed on by space vamps,” Ronon said, pushing on John’s shoulder.

“You are not ever to use the V word in my presence again, or I will bite you the next time I’m hungry in that way,” John warned the Satedan in an undertone. Ronon just grinned and shrugged, unphased by John’s threat.

Stackhouse circled around above and kept moving them along. Eventually, he stopped and landed. John, Ronon and Teyla ran to him. Now came the tricky part, deciphering whatever message Stackhouse might need to impart.

_*It isn’t hard at all, silly haima.*_ A voice laced with humor touched John’s mind.

_*Telepathic too? You are full of surprises today, Stackhouse.*_

_*You’re probably the only one I can do it with, anyone else would have their brainpan fried if I tried it. Didn’t you ever wonder why most Riders were haima? Few other races can handle the communication.*_

_*I wasn’t aware of that. I wasn’t raised haima, I missed out on the early education. Did you find Kolya?*_

_*Yup. Boy is he stinky these days! Worse than a ten-year roving coulro. Down the road there is a camp, he’s in the big tent on the far end, he doesn’t have very many men. They probably can’t stand his body odor.*_

_*You gonna stay like this for a while?*_ John waved at his scaly hide.

_*Yes, please. It’s been years, I missed the sky.*_

John understood that so well that he couldn’t resist reaching out and stroking a hand across Stackhouse’s broad nose. Speaking aloud for the benefit of Teyla and Ronon, who could not follow the telepathic conversation, John said, “Guard our six?”

_*Of course.*_

“You have my permission to eat him if he comes running this way.” John said that aloud as well, figuring Ronon would enjoy it. The big man did, he laughed heartily behind him. 

_*Ew. Raw dead un-dead dead thing? Ewwww.*_

John laughed and patted the hide once more. For some reason, he was finding it hard to stop touching Stackhouse.

_*It’s the haima blood, the ancient bond. Don’t worry, it will fade when I go back to being human Nate again.*_

“Good to know,” John muttered and threw up a bunch of blocks so that Stackhouse would stop reading his surface thoughts.

_*Prude.*_

_*Snoop.*_

_*I’ll stop. It’s been so long, I couldn’t resist either.*_ Stackhouse nosed at John’s hip and gave a sorry little whimper. 

“Oh, fine, I forgive you!” He patted his neck again, his fingers touching the edges of the scales, tracing around them.

When he turned towards Teyla and Ronon, he found them staring at him and Stackhouse. “You talk to dragons?” Ronon asked in a montone.

“Uhm, yeah?” John shrugged sheepishly then tapped the side of his head with one finger. “He said the camp is up the road, Kolya is in the big tent at the back.”

“Kolya will smell you coming,” Ronon reminded him. “He has your scent, he hates you.” 

Crap. “You two circle around, Teyla cover the front of the tent, Ronon, cover the back.”

“What will you do, John?”

“Air drop,” he grinned, having gotten the idea when Stackhouse had been talking about the ancient bond between haima and Riders. He looked at Stackhouse, _*You game?*_

Stackhouse lowered his head to the ground, presenting his neck. John walked over and grabbed one of the spikes protruding from his neck and used it for leverage to throw himself upwards. He settled into place just behind where the long neck met the rest of Stackhouse’s body. Ronon and Teyla walked backwards, watching as Stackhouse took the sky again, this time with John clinging to his scales. 

_*This is...*_ John couldn’t finish the thought.

_*Yeah. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t have the sky now and then,*_ Stackhouse agreed.

John’s vision made up for Stackhouse’s less acute sight, another reason haima had been prized as Riders once. He was easily able to see Teyla and Ronon take up their positions. _*They’re ready, get me close enough to stop drop and roll.*_

_*You got it, boss.*_

Stackhouse swooped over the tent, and the backdraft from his wings knocked one side of it down. John leapt from his neck, gliding down and landing hard, rolling over a few times in the grass beside the tent. By the time he gained his feet, Kolya was there. Unsurprisingly, he was not happy to see John.

“You!” he hissed and pointed. Stackhouse had been correct, Kolya reeked to high heaven!

“Yeah, me. You need to stay dead.” John threw himself at the stelly. They grappled and John threw Kolya, then jumped on him. He wanted to fang up and tear out Kolya’s throat, but he worried what the blood would do to him. Haima were cautioned not to feed off athanata, the Milky Way version of stelly, their blood could be poison back home. No wonder Ronon wasn’t worried about John’s threat to bite him. 

This had to be done the old fashioned way. It turned into a hand to hand fight, punches flying, John not holding anything back as he let out his rage at what this man had done to him and had tried to do to his city. 

He didn’t see the knife when it appeared, and Teyla’s shouted warning came an instant too late. The blade was thrust into John’s gut and Kolya, with inhuman strength, yanked it upwards, opening John’s abdomen from below his button all the way up to his sternum. He felt the pain a few seconds after the knife was withdrawn. “You lose,” his enemy said, grinning at him.

“Not. Yet.” John gasped out, holding his hand to his gut. He saw Ronon coming up behind Kolya and he nodded, giving his friend permission to finish what he had started. The fight began anew as Ronon spun Kolya around by the shoulder and the two stelly began to trade punches. 

Teyla ran to John’s side, pressing her hands beside his over the gaping wound. “This is very bad, John. Will you be able to heal?”

“Yeah, I know, pretty bad. Losing too much blood too quickly. I can’t heal up fast enough. You guys make sure to take him down, okay? I don’t want to come back as a coulro to have to take care of him.” He coughed, spitting up blood. 

Teyla had to leave him to fire her weapon at Kolya’s men that had belatedly come to investigate what the ruckus was about. He heard her shout, “STACKHOUSE!” He coul dnot remember hearing Teyla raise her voice like that before. Vaguely, John wondered how good a First Kin’s hearing was.

_*What happened?*_ Apparently, their hearing was very good.

_*Not going according to plan,* John replied. _*We’re outgunned.*__

An unearthly scream rent the air, and all motion stopped. Kolya’s men looked around fearfully. The scream came again and they backed away and then turned and ran toward the Gate, leaving Kolya behind. So much for loyalty.

_*Nice trick.*_

_*Jedi Sand People trick,*_ Stackhouse replied with humor in his mind voice. 

_*Too many movies. All of you watch too many movies. Glad I got to fly with you, Stackhouse.*_

_*We’ll do it again, it was fun.*_

John coughed, choking on the blood bubbling in his throat. _*No. No more sky for me.*_ Everything went dark then. The last thing he heard was Teyla’s cry of denial as she fell to her knees beside him. The last thing he felt - her hands on his cheeks, so warm and alive.

~*~

“Drink,dammit!”

John hurt, more than he had since the crash. He had never hurt this much since the turning. He felt warmth against his neck. Wet warmth was pressing against his lips. The command came again. “Drink, John. Goddamn it, your heart is still beating, you are not dead yet, so open your mouth and drink!”

He forced his eyes open. Stackhouse was holding him, his forearm held to John’s mouth. _*Drink. I finally found someone who understands. I can’t let you go yet, sir.*_ His eyes were pleading as he looked down at John. 

John opened his mouth and took what was being offered. He thought it was probably too late, a non-haima could not give him enough blood to survive his wounds, but he sucked at the blood that was trickling into his mouth. He had been wrong again. He felt the strength of Stackhouse’s blood, the ancient power of First Kin begin to course through him. His body jerked as his haima blood tried to adapt to the origin blood now coursing into him. His body was on fire. Memories of his turning flooded back to him, of Patrick holding him and trading blood with him. 

_*What’s happening?*_

_*A bond is forming, you’re becoming Rider. My Rider. I promise, I won’t hold you to anything. But you’ll live. We’ll work out the rest later.*_

The pain became too much and John succumbed to it, closed his eyes and let Stackhouse’s blood slide down his throat.

~*~

When John woke again, he was in the infirmary. Beckett was there, and Stackhouse was beside him. Not too far off, Teyla and Lorne had their heads bent close together, talking too quietly for John to pick up the conversation, even with his enhanced hearing. Ronon was sprawled in the chair beside the bed.

“I’m not dead,” John said to Carson. 

“Thanks to your team, no. The lad here knew enough to get fresh blood into ye, though I’m not sure how he managed to get enough in to tide you over until you could heal.” Carson patted Stackhouse’s shoulder. 

“Kolya?” John asked. He knew it was because Stackhouse was First Kin and his blood was different, but that was not his secret to share.

Ronon leaned forward and tossed a small glass vial onto John’s bed by his hand. He picked it up and stared at the grey powder within. “That’s for your boots.”

“Where is the rest?”

Lorne was grinning as he came to the end of the bed. “P43-765, Athos, M76-234, P83-098 aaanndd S23-111.”

“He has been scattered to the winds,” Teyla smiled as they conveyed the news.

Smiling, John settled back against the pillows. His middle burned. A glance under the sheet showed a wide bandage across his abdomen. “Good job, everyone. Thank you.”

Ronon showed him a bandage on his forearm. “He bit me.”

“You knew he was vicious, why did you let him get close?” John’s laugh turned into a groan as his middle pulled. 

“Stackhouse spit on him,” Ronon said, and that summed up the way the rest of the fight had gone down after John was knocked out of it. 

“I need a few words with Sergeant Stackhouse,” John said quietly. “Thanks guys, I owe you for this one.”

Teyla smiled and walked away with Lorne. Beckett and Ronon trailed along behind. 

“Sergeant...”

_*Given the circumstances, you should call me Nate.*_

_*Right, Nate. What happens now? I’m at a loss here.*_

Nate shrugged elegantly. _*I don’t know. This is new to me. It’s been a long time since anyone took a Rider.*_

_*Are we like soulmates or something?*_

_*I don’t think so. Look, sir...*_

_*John.*_

_*I want to make sure this is clear right up front, John. I’m straight. This is never going to be more than friendship between us. I know you’re not, but I’m not going to be attracted to you that way.*_

Blinking at him, John had to laugh after a minute. _*Okay, well, that certainly cut straight through the trouble of future wondering and making moves and rejection and such. I appreciate the honesty. I wasn’t really looking for a romantic liaison, but I guess it could become an issue with this Rider thing, huh?*_

Stackhouse blushed. _*Yeah, ordinarily, I would have taken a female as my Rider, for that reason.*_

“Do you have a girl back home?” John asked aloud, a simple enough question that didn’t require the privacy of mind-speech. It would have looked a little weird to the mundane nurse passing if John and Nate just continued to stare at each other without speaking.

“I did. She found someone else. That’s why I took this mission.” 

_*We’ll have to find you a nice First Kin then so you can settle down and make eggs.*_

“Oh, you’re funny.”

“Aren’t I? Thank you, Nate. I wasn’t quite ready to cross over yet, I’ve got a lot of things unfinished on this side. I like it here.”

Nate nodded. _*I’d like to see how many other fernal there are here in Pegasus.*_

_*Maybe we’ll find some others like you.*_

That got a smile. _*Maybe, though I have to say, I don’t like the Pegasus version of haima.*_

“Wraith are not natural, they are engineered. The database said so.” 

“Alright, enough chatter. Out, Sergeant. He needs to sleep to finish healing. Thank you for the blood donation.” Carson poked Stackhouse in the hip to get him moving. 

John looked up and saw that there was a unit of blood dripping via IV into his arm. He’d be healed by morning, he was sure of it.

~*~

They had come to Sateda because Ronon said there might be libraries with some of the old books still intact. They had left Rodney behind, working on some project so he didn’t notice the slight. Lorne had come with them this time, and each of the team had been tagged, so that the vreite could find any of them again, should they get separated from the group.

Teyla, Ronon and Lorne went in one direction, Stackhouse went in the other. 

“John, come this way,” Nate called. He had found a wide courtyard that was mostly clear of debris. “Want to fly?”

“Do you need to ask?” 

 

The End

 

A glossary of sorts:

alastor = haunts (ghosts/quasi-zombies)  
allaghi = changers(were-people)   
Allos = other world  
athanata = undying   
coulro = walkers (zombies- vengeful spirits)  
deigma = shifters (shape-changers)  
dryas = tree-kin (dryads/nymphs/satyrs)  
fernal = overall name for all the species of Allos  
First Kin = a dragon-kin allaghi  
galpen = Pegasus version of allaghi  
haima = blood children (vampires)  
kleftis = thieves (power absorbers)  
krazo = screamers (banshee)  
naroose = Pegasus version of coulro  
phenix = rebirths (reincarnated soul)  
Rider = paired with a First Kin, usually a haima  
stelly = Pegasus version of athanata  
stoicheo = elementals (fairies, pixies, nixies, sirens)  
Stoker = fernal slang for a Trust breaker, as in Bram Stoker  
The Trust = the oath taken by all fernal to keep Allos secret and safe from mundanes  
*a corrupt fernal organization that has gone quasi-public, SG-1 has has troubles with the organization.  
therio = beastly (trolls/ogres/orcs)  
vreite = finders  
Ntais = bully


End file.
